Rating: 
Summary: Beware the Parser Framework!
Review: I agree with the other 3-star reviews of this book. It's full of fascinating ideas about a very advanced topic, but the fact that everything is so dependent on the included framework makes it difficult to learn from. I think the best programming books teach you how to build step-by-step from the ground up. Instead, this book expects you to immerse yourself in the code first, and then figure things out from there.
Rating:
Summary: Beware the Parser Framework!
Review: I agree with the other 3-star reviews of this book. It's full of fascinating ideas about a very advanced topic, but the fact that everything is so dependent on the included framework makes it difficult to learn from. I think the best programming books teach you how to build step-by-step from the ground up. Instead, this book expects you to immerse yourself in the code first, and then figure things out from there.
Rating: 
Summary: Parser Design for the 21st century
Review: I found this powerful parser framework easy to understand (with a little help from my friends) and a pleasure to incorporate into my programmers toolbox.Aho is for Computer Scientists and Mathematicians, while the organic nature of Steve's thinking and elegant application of Design Patterns to the problem of creating an extensible parser, is more up a Biologist turned webmaster alley. In less that a few days we were able to convert IDL to WSDL, in less than 100 lines of code! The only issue I had was the text sometimes could have benefited with some graphical depiction of the concepts, or even an accompanying flash animation / demo website. Maybe in the next edition?
Rating:
Summary: Really nice book for parsing
Review: I have recently read this book, and found that it is one of the best books of explaining how to build your own parsers. It provides a lot of useful libraries and good examples. If you read first few chapters, then you can build your parser without difficulties. I am currently building my language parser which is related to SQL, my boss and I thought that we have to use JavaCC, but we might change our mind to use the library provided by this book.
One thing you have to be careful is that the author is thinking you are a good java programmer. That means he skipped some explanation on some topics that might make readers confused if they don't have enough background.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent ideas, very poor explanations.
Review: I purchased this book for two reasons. 1. My compiler class in college was the only CS class I took that really kicked my butt in the code. Maybe because it was the first application I had to write in school and live with it for a whole semester? Always felt guilty about my 'lack' of knowledge in this area and wanted to do something about it. 2. I was hitting the wall with how far I could push XML at work. I had been converting a config data file to an XML file as a go between for an embeded system and a Java application. The embedded guys added meta information to the legacy config file with special comments. All of the sudden a simple convert to XML and back via XSL wan't going to cut it! Panic!!! <grin> I stumbled over this book last week while getting the new Applied Java Patterns book. The preface for this book was by one of the authors from the GoF book.(Vlissides) After reading his comments I figured he was a smart guy and learned something so surely I could as well. WOW! With this book and the excellant supporting code library I was able to write a parser that contained around 15 simple tokens in one week. The author's code is free to use as long as you don't claim it as your own. The supplied code is one of the best uses I've seen to date on how to solve a serious and complex problem with design patterns. College kids having to build a parser from scratch for a class may not like this book. I would still consider this a great intro or refresher since you have working code to play with. Caution:
If your new to 'design patterns' AND parsers your not ready for this book. If you know design patterns 'just a little' and your curious about parsers think of this book as a working model to play with, embrace and extend. You could possibly use this book to learn design patterns. It is well written code that solves some cool problems. Oh! Before I forget. If you do not know what recursion means or how it works. Your not ready for this book. If your on a deadline an you need something quick, look here first. Best code I've seen packaged with a development book. I also liked how the code was installed by using an install.html file that detected your OS with a trusted applet and then installed the code AND the JVM. Nice touch for people that can't download a 30MB JDK over a 56K modem. :-) Great book I would highly recomend to any Senior Level Java Developer or college student in a compiler class.
Rating:
Summary: Best example of design patterns in a complex system
Review: I purchased this book for two reasons. 1. My compiler class in college was the only CS class I took that really kicked my butt in the code. Maybe because it was the first application I had to write in school and live with it for a whole semester? Always felt guilty about my 'lack' of knowledge in this area and wanted to do something about it. 2. I was hitting the wall with how far I could push XML at work. I had been converting a config data file to an XML file as a go between for an embeded system and a Java application. The embedded guys added meta information to the legacy config file with special comments. All of the sudden a simple convert to XML and back via XSL wan't going to cut it! Panic!!! I stumbled over this book last week while getting the new Applied Java Patterns book. The preface for this book was by one of the authors from the GoF book.(Vlissides) After reading his comments I figured he was a smart guy and learned something so surely I could as well. WOW! With this book and the excellant supporting code library I was able to write a parser that contained around 15 simple tokens in one week. The author's code is free to use as long as you don't claim it as your own. The supplied code is one of the best uses I've seen to date on how to solve a serious and complex problem with design patterns. College kids having to build a parser from scratch for a class may not like this book. I would still consider this a great intro or refresher since you have working code to play with. Caution:
If your new to 'design patterns' AND parsers your not ready for this book. If you know design patterns 'just a little' and your curious about parsers think of this book as a working model to play with, embrace and extend. You could possibly use this book to learn design patterns. It is well written code that solves some cool problems. Oh! Before I forget. If you do not know what recursion means or how it works. Your not ready for this book. If your on a deadline an you need something quick, look here first. Best code I've seen packaged with a development book. I also liked how the code was installed by using an install.html file that detected your OS with a trusted applet and then installed the code AND the JVM. Nice touch for people that can't download a 30MB JDK over a 56K modem. :-) Great book I would highly recomend to any Senior Level Java Developer or college student in a compiler class.
Rating:
Summary: Includes more than three hundred Java classes
Review: In Building Parsers With JAVA, computer language expert Steven Metsker shows how to create parsers that recognize custom programming languages. Readers will learn how to design, code and test a working parser; how to create a parser to read data language; how to crate a new computer language; how to translate the design of language into code; how to accept an arithmetic formula and compute its result; how to build parsers for a custom query language going beyond SQL; and much, much more. The "user friendly" text is enhanced with an accompany CD-ROM containing all of the examples and the parser toolkit, including more than three hundred Java classes and their corresponding javadoc documentation. Also provided are example programs for the new logic, query, and imperative languages introduced in the text. Building Parsers With JAVA is an indispensable and highly recommended book/CD addition to the language programmer reference shelf.
Rating:
Summary: interesting
Review: It's an exciting topic and the source code on the CD is great. Incidentally, the book says you may use the code as you wish (provided you don't claim it as your own). Unfortunately, the writing is awkward. I found that I was able to get what the author was saying do running his many examples though a debugger. Without that I would have been lost. I am still glad I bought the book and will be applying what I have learned at work.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent ideas, very poor explanations.
Review: The author knows his subject in depth and supplies both a framework and code library within which pretty much any problem can be solved -- in ways I myself never would have thought of on my own. In this sense, it's a must-have book. However, the author's explanation of his code library is virtually non-existent -- you're going to have to figure out what he's talking about all on your own, digging into his code on the CD. To compound it, that code can be a bit perplexing when 95% of his variables have one-letter names -- it just isn't very readable if you're not already familiar with his ideas and approach. Finally, as the author admits himself, parsing problems come down to two things: the actual parsing of a grammar itself, and then generating some code with whatever it is that you've parsed. You would think that he would devote roughly 50% of his exposition to both sides of the equation. Sadly, it's more like 99.9% and 0.01%, Assemblers being the topic that completely gets the shaft -- if you're working on a more complicated problem than the simple examples he discusses, you're going to have to study his underlying Assembler/Assembly code like a madman, cause you sure won't find any kind of explanation in the book. The good news is that you'll be up and running and writing simple grammars and parsers in very little time. The bad news is that if you're working on anything remotely more complex, you'll find that his code does not work the way you expected, and will find yourself forced to peer into the black box to figure what the heck it actually IS doing.
Rating:
Summary: John Vlissides Foreword is right on the money
Review: The foreword says "Traditional parsing tools are overkill at best, antiquated and unusable at worst. The result? Ad hoc has become the parsing approach of choice. But when I read this book, I had a change of heart." So did I. I came across this book (a week and a half ago) when I was just about to begin designing a small language to embed in an application. I was loathing the task to come because the parser development tools are all oriented towards large languages and there's nothing to help with small ones. I really didn't want to go learn all about JavaCC or SableCC. They are both excellent tools, but overkill for my tiny language. The first day, I read chapters 1-5 and wrote a couple of experimental attempts at pieces of our desired langauge to prove that it would work. The second day, reading material from chapters 4 (on testing), 5 (on data languages), and 6 (on transforming grammars), I paired with another developer and we developed the entire grammar for our little language. The third day, we used chapter 5 again and bits of chapters 10 (Matching Mechanics) and 16 (Parsing an Imperative Language) to develop the actions in our language. Absolutely fantastic. Useful. Practical. On topic without the wasted digressions introducing basic Java concepts that are so prevalent in many Java books.
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